The Season 8 Premiere of ‘CSI:NY’ Recognizes The ‘Indelible’ Mark Left By 9/11

Mac Taylor honors those who died on 9/11 when the eighth season of CSI: New York gets underway. (Major episode spoilers can be found after the jump!)

According to CSI Files sources, “Indelible” picks up four months after the season seven finale. It has been exactly ten years since September 11, 2001, and Mac cannot help but think back to that fateful day. He spent the morning with his wife, Claire; she teased him as he shaved to get ready for work, and Mac surprised her with tickets to the opera. They were going to go that night, and Claire was excited. They were very much a couple in love, going about their lives with no clue that tragedy would befall them just a few short hours later.

In the present, Mac goes to work at Piper Laboratories, a private DNA lab. He left the New York Crime Lab four months ago, and his new job gives him the opportunity to help others who lost loved ones during the attack ten years ago. Piper Laboratories tests the remains of 9/11 victims, and they are trying to develop new DNA extraction techniques that will allow them to identify victims and give families some much-needed closure.

Mac works alongside a brilliant young lab tech named Hannah McCray, who has a lot of book smarts but spends too much time behind a microscope. She asks him about Claire, and she wonders if he’s working at Piper Laboratories because he’s hoping his research will help identify his wife’s remains. Mac explains that it isn’t just about him; there are more than 1,000 unidentified victims from 9/11, and he understands their families’ pain all-too-well. The lab has only identified one victim in the past year and a half, but Mac knows that giving even one more family closure makes all of the hard work worthwhile.

Mac has also spent the past four months working on a project to honor heroes who lost their lives on 9/11. His former colleagues in the New York Crime Lab hope to close their latest case in time to attend the unveiling ceremony and show their support. The case finds the remaining CSIs working alongside Sergeant Danny Messer on a robbery gone tragically wrong. Two men wearing hooded sweatshirts and sunglasses barged into a bar late at night, robbing the patrons and killing Sean Pearson, the man stationed at the door.

The team is able to track the suspects down by tracing the cellphones they stole from the people in the bar. Danny and Flack burst into the apartment with a pair of uniformed officers, catching them in possession of the stolen goods and several guns. When they bring the suspects in for questioning, the men seem surprised to learn that Sean is dead. They may have robbed the place, but they claim they didn’t shoot anybody. It doesn’t sound believable, but the evidence may prove that someone else pulled the trigger.

Please note that the above plot details have not been confirmed by CBS, Alliance Atlantis or Bruckheimer Films, and until such time you should treat this information as you would any other rumour. The above information comes from early script drafts and the details of the episodes are liable to change before the episodes are shown.

The season eight premiere of CSI: NY will air September 23 at 9:00pm ET/PT on CBS.